


move fast enough, we won't die

by ShowMeAHero



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Humor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Misunderstandings, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Trans Male Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24321544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: When Richie turns ten years old, months before Eddie does, he doesn’t let anybody see the name that shows up on his wrist.“Why not?” Eddie asks, while they’re sitting together at lunch that day. “Is it a stupid name?”“Yes,” Richie answers.——————————Richie's soulmark says the right name at the wrong time.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 14
Kudos: 400





	move fast enough, we won't die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [takenstanley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/takenstanley/gifts).



> For Spen!

When Richie turns ten years old, months before Eddie does, he doesn’t let anybody see the name that shows up on his wrist.

“Why not?” Eddie asks, while they’re sitting together at lunch that day. “Is it a stupid name?”

“Yes,” Richie answers. He tugs his sleeves further down over his hands and doesn’t entertain more questions about it, which is weird. Eddie had always thought that was weird; Richie didn’t miss a chance to joke at himself before somebody else could make that joke about him. Ignoring something was never really his style.

Of course, Eddie had been going through a lot at the time. Besides the fact that Richie’s soulmark apparently didn’t have his name, because surely Richie would’ve told him  _ that,  _ Eddie at nine years old wasn’t using the name  _ Eddie  _ yet. He’d still been using his deadname, that young, especially since his mother didn’t care to entertain thoughts of him transitioning until he’d moved out of the house the day he turned eighteen.

When Eddie had turned ten, it’d been a special sort of hell to look down and see  _ Richard  _ written across his wrist the second he woke up. He’d just stared at it, for a long,  _ long  _ time, before telling his mother he wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to go to school.

She’d insisted on seeing the mark. Of course she did. She always  _ insisted  _ in a way that means,  _ I’m going to do this to you, so don’t put up a fuss.  _ Between Richie’s name on his wrist and Eddie’s tentative questions about the difference between boys and girls, his mother had clammed up  _ real  _ fucking fast.

Eddie never showed anybody his soulmark, either. When he looks back on it, he wishes he had. Even just to Bev or somebody, before she moved away, just so somebody would really  _ understand  _ what Richie’s name on his wrist fucking  _ means. _

He wishes he could go back and ask his mom, back when he was still ten or eleven and still trusted her to do right by him, to free him from the prisons he’d felt he was in. Now, of course, he knows she’d been the one who put the bars up in the first place. He  _ knows  _ that asking her to free him would only make her ask him, “From what, Eddie?” and he never had an answer for that. From  _ her,  _ from himself, from his own body and the prison that  _ he  _ was becoming.

He had no idea what it all meant, when he was ten, eleven, twelve. Being a kid is just making a thousand mistakes every fucking day to find out who you really are. Fuck, that’s all being a  _ person  _ is, but he hadn’t had the words when he was thirteen years old to explain how he felt. He didn’t know how to say that looking at himself in the mirror made him feelqueasy, that his chest made him nauseous and his period made him fucking  _ sick. _

Instead, all he’d done when he was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, was stare himself down in the mirror and think to himself,  _ “Whatever the fuck this is, I don’t want to be it.” _

But at sixteen, seventeen, he couldn’t say that to anyone. Least of all his mother. She wouldn’t understand, and it would only hurt her feelings. So, he doesn’t say anything at all.

He couldn’t tell the Losers,  _ obviously.  _ They’re the worst at keeping secrets in the fucking  _ world.  _ He does what he can, but he knows saying too much would just end up in one of them spilling the beans to his mom and ending up with him locked in his room until he’s legally allowed to live on his own.

Nobody ever knows. The only person who knows  _ anything  _ at all is his mother, because she’s seen Richie’s name on his wrist. But that’s all she knows.

And so, he doesn’t tell the Losers when he turns ten. His phone rings off the hook, but he doesn’t answer it. The Losers were supposed to come over for his birthday, but he doesn’t answer the door, either. Neither does his mother. He doesn’t check to see if his door is locked, but he assumes it is.

That night, Richie throws rocks at his window. He knows it’s Richie; nobody else throws handfuls of pebbles like he does.

Eddie slips the window open just to make him stop making noise, but when he sees Richie’s red face, he stops.

“What’s wrong?” Richie demands, voice a loud whisper. “What happened? Was it the name?”

“Richie, go home,” Eddie tells him. He’s ten. He’s  _ ten. _

“I’m not going home until you tell me what’s wrong,” Richie insists. “Tell me.”

“No,” Eddie snaps at him. “You never told me  _ yours.” _

Richie’s red face goes redder, and he turns away for a second before whirling back around and desperately telling Eddie, “I  _ can’t.” _

Eddie’s got tears in his eyes when he says, “Neither can I.”

There’s a second where Richie just stands there, staring up at him. His hands were still small then; he hadn’t hit any growth spurts, but he’d stood there with his fingers curled into fists all the same, shaking in Eddie’s side yard.

“It’s a boy’s name,” Richie tells him. Eddie’s heart skips in his chest.

“What?” Eddie asks. “My—”

“The name,” Richie says over him, “on my wrist. Is a boy’s name.”

“What is—” Eddie starts to ask, but then his mother comes in the room and he’s yanked back from the window before he can finish his question.

“Richard Tozier, go home before I call your parents to come and collect you,” she had spit out the window at him. That’s a real threat; Richie’s parents hated to be bothered with him. They’d made that abundantly clear the very few times Eddie had interacted with them.

“No, I was talking to—”

“I won’t say it again,” she tells him. She slams the window shut and turns on Eddie instead. “I  _ told  _ you—”

“He came  _ here!”  _ Eddie tells her tearfully. “I was telling him to go—”

“Do  _ not  _ interrupt me,” she says coldly, and he stops, looking down at his fingernails. His hands shook more that night than he thinks they ever have since. “You aren’t allowed to see him again. Not  _ once.  _ Do you hear me?”

Eddie nods.

“I asked if you heard me.”

“I heard you,” Eddie tells her quietly. He can’t make himself look up, not until she’s gone out of the room with the door closed behind her. He sits down on his bed and just curls up on his side, staring at the window at the tree waving at him outside. It’s starting to lose its red leaves.

Richie’s face appears in the window, and Eddie’s not even surprised. He doesn’t move as Richie forces the window open himself, shoving himself through the small space and spilling across Eddie’s carpet.

“What was _ that?” _ Richie demands. He’s still ten, too; he can fit in small places like this, and he still thinks it’s okay to do things as long as he thinks they’re right.

“We can’t hang out anymore, Rich,” Eddie tells him. He feels tears come to his eyes again, but he scrubs them away with the back of his wrist. Richie tries to come over and take his hands, but Eddie pulls away from him, rolling onto his other side and facing away from him.

“What did—”

“Richie,” Eddie cuts him off. His voice cracks when he says, “I’m sorry, you have to go.”

“Is it my name?” Richie asks. Eddie doesn’t answer. “Is— Is it a girl’s name? Because if it is—”

“Get out, Richie,” Eddie tells him. He can hear Richie sniffling, too, but he doesn’t look back. If Richie comes again and Eddie’s mom sees, then she really  _ will  _ call Richie’s parents, and he could get hurt if they’re too mad. She’ll never forgive Eddie or Richie for this, anyways. Soulmarks are forever. This isn’t something she can just force away.

“But—”

“Richie,  _ stop,”  _ Eddie says. That’s the last thing they say to each other.

He hears Richie sniffling still, but he goes back to the window. Eddie can hear each of his footsteps. He can hear the window slide up, and he can hear Richie climb out. He also hears Richie start to say something, but, whatever it is, he doesn’t say it.

Then, he jumps. Eddie hears his sneakered feet hit the dying grass outside with a soft  _ thwump  _ before he starts running away.

Eddie runs away, too. Not on purpose, but his mom pulls him out of school, and they move go to stay with his mom’s cousin in New Jersey for a couple weeks until his mom finds a place down there for them. He doesn’t see Richie again after that.

He starts over in New Jersey, but not really. He gets a fresh start, but not  _ really,  _ because his wrist still says  _ Richard  _ and his chest still makes him sick and his mother still spreads him thinner and thinner by the day. It’s not until he turns eighteen and finally gets out on his own, on his  _ actual  _ own, that he can live the way he fucking  _ wants  _ to live.

He comes out in college. Everyone knows him as  _ Eddie  _ before they know him as anyone else. He starts living out, and he’s introduced to Myra, and he’s so fucking thrilled that this woman sees him as the man he’s never been allowed to be that he briefly doesn’t give a shit that she micromanages him in every other single element of his life. Unfortunately, that brief period lasted long enough for them to get married, one of Eddie’s bigger mistakes in life.

He’s got his highs and lows. Who doesn’t? That’s all life is. He doesn’t go back to Maine, because why would he? He left there when he was ten. He’s in his early 40s now, freshly-divorced, and he’s getting a message on Facebook from Bill Denbrough.

They’ve messaged on and off over the years, kept tabs on each other, but Eddie didn’t finish growing up with them. He didn’t graduate with them, so he doesn’t know why Bill keeps inviting him to come visit Derry. Bill insists that everyone wants to see him and catch up, that they want to see how he’s doing. The way  _ Bill  _ insists is more of a casual persuasion, like,  _ hey, wouldn’t it be nice?,  _ which Eddie prefers vastly to his mother’s insisting.

For the first time, though, Bill invites him when bringing Myra would finally no longer be obligatory. Eddie can go and just… be Eddie, for once.

_ Sure,  _ he sends back to Bill.  _ I’d love to see everyone in person. _

**_Everyone wants to see you!_ ** Bill replies.  **_The famous Eddie Kaspbrak._ **

Eddie doesn’t ask who  _ everyone  _ is. He’s kept in touch with most of the Losers over social media as its become more and more popular, but not Richie. He tries not to think about Richie or about his name on the inside of Eddie’s wrist; Richie’s never reached out, so Eddie doesn’t either. He’s not even sure what he’d say, at this point.

_ I’ll be there,  _ he tells Bill. He’s happy that he means it. He’s been running away for a long, long time. It might finally be that he needs to make peace with that part of himself he’s locked away before he can really,  _ truly  _ start over.

_ For real this time,  _ he tells himself in the mirror. He likes his reflection now.  _ Fresh start. You got this, Eddie. _

He just hopes everyone else is ready to meet him.

* * *

Richie’s only mildly looking forward to his twenty-fifth high school reunion. It’s always nice to see the Losers together again, but it feels… Not  _ weird,  _ exactly, but just, off. Like there’s a piece missing. He tries not to dwell on it.

The inside of Richie’s wrist has said  _ Edward  _ for the last thirty-odd years. He’s never told anyone, not even to joke about it during the peak  _ Twilight  _ times, which he deserves a fucking  _ medal  _ for. It was perfect material and he didn’t tell a  _ soul. _

When Richie attends a high school reunion, there’s usually a healthy amount of ribbing about his lack of date and the fact that he’s still hiding his soulmark. He laughs it off but, every five years, the comments get a little less jokey and a little more pitying. He’s not tremendously looking forward to this year, either. They don’t know he’s got a man’s name on his wrist, nor do they  _ need  _ to, but he’s still not a fan of them trying to set him up with women every time.

“Heyo,” Richie calls, as loudly as he can, across the gymnasium of Derry High School. Bill Denbrough waves at him, looking much the same as he had when they got lunch together last week, but Richie pulls him into the first hug all the same.

“How’re you doing, Rich?” Ben asks. Now, Ben and Bev, Richie hasn’t seen them in a few months, so he gives them the next hugs, tugging them in tight.

“Oh, same as ever,” Richie tells them. “Me and Bruno live the dream.”

“Who’s Bruno?” Ben asks. “Are you—”

“His new dog, Ben, I told you that,” Bev cuts him off. The look she gives Richie is too much. He looks away from it. “Remember?”

“He’s a boxer,” Richie tells him, “but I keep telling him to use his words, not his fists.”

His friends laugh and let it slide. Richie tries not to feel his  _ don’t-know-I’m-gay  _ hackles go up, but they’re fucking  _ up. _

“Oh, look!” Bill exclaims. Richie turns to the door he’s just come in, expecting to see Stan and Patty, but it’s… some guy, he’s not sure who.

“Wh—” Richie starts to ask, but then Ben says, “Oh, hey, Eddie!” and Richie feels like his heart punches a hole through his chest. Hollow, he stares at this man. Apparently named Eddie. Which is the name on his wrist. Or a— a nickname for it, anyways, it  _ counts,  _ this has to mean  _ something— _

“Who the fuck is Eddie?” Richie asks. When he’s actually able to think and see through the haze of  _ holy shit uh-oh holy fuck holy shit  _ in his head, his heart turns over in his chest.

Eddie’s fucking— He’s  _ hot,  _ he’s some hot dude who’s at least six inches shorter than Richie. He has the nearly-irrepressible urge to hug this guy, for some reason. All he does is stare down at him, brow furrowed in confusion, as Bill greets Eddie like they’re old friends.

“Holy shit, Eddie, you look  _ great,”  _ Bill comments. He holds Eddie back by his shoulders, looking him over for a moment before he laughs.

“What, do I know him?” Richie asks Bev. She looks to him like she’s confused by his question.

“Do you  _ know  _ me?” Eddie asks. “Yeah, Rich,  _ hey.” _

Richie stares down hard at him for a second before he recognizes him. His heart picks up impossibly fast, racing in his chest as he looks at— at someone who’s apparently Eddie now, and who must’ve been— must’ve been Eddie back  _ then,  _ who has  _ always  _ been his fucking soulmate,  _ this entire fucking time. _

“Oh, shit,” Richie says quietly. He feels like he’s drowning. “I  _ do  _ know you.”

Eddie’s brow furrows. Richie realizes he really, truly  _ does  _ know him as he looks into bright brown eyes and an expression of such furious rage it could really only belong to him.

Of course, that just makes Richie start shaking uncontrollably. He looks down at his hands like they’re from someone else’s body, but he can’t make them stop. Instead, he just keeps staring down, feeling his breath come faster and faster in his chest. It all feels like it takes an hour, but it’s only a few seconds, at most.

“I have to—” Richie starts to say, but it comes out choked and he nearly vomits at the end, anxiety making his chest and stomach turn. He bolts away from them, pushing out through the side door of the gymnasium and into the parking lot.

The cool air of an April night in Maine slaps him in the face as soon as he’s outside, but it’s not enough to calm him down before his stomach turns again and he has to hold himself up against the wall to vomit onto the ground. His sleeve slips up where his arm’s outstretched, palm digging into rough brick as he empties his stomach contents on the ground. He sees  _ Edward  _ on his arm and can’t help but get sick again.

The door bangs open behind him, and then Bill’s voice demands, “What the fuck was  _ that,  _ Richie?”

Richie can’t answer. He coughs, then spits, leaning up to wipe at his mouth with the back of his wrist. His  _ right  _ wrist, not his left where the name  _ Edward  _ feels like it’s on fucking  _ fire. _

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bill asks. His voice is sharp and snappish, but that’s more than fair, Richie thinks. “What the fuck was that about, you asshole? You’ve lived in LA, don’t tell me you’re fucking transphobic—”

Richie jolts around and glares at him. After a second, he motions wildly back towards the door and says, “E— Bill,  _ Eddie,  _ he’s—  _ Eddie—” _

“Yeah, Rich, he’s fucking  _ Eddie,”  _ Bill says, slowly, like Richie’s a child. “You have to call him that now, you know—”

“I fucking  _ know,”  _ Richie snaps. He pushes his hands roughly back through his hair, then paces away from Bill. He darts back just to put his finger in Bill’s face and say, “Why the  _ fuck  _ didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you  _ what?”  _ Bill asks. “You never ask! I brought him up a while ago and you didn’t say anything!”

Richie wracks his brain for that conversation, but he doesn’t come up with anything. Instead, he just says desperately, “Billy, I didn’t— I didn’t  _ know.” _

Bill looks absolutely bewildered, and that confusion just makes Richie fall to pieces. Nobody fucking  _ knows  _ him. The only reason Bill could come up with for why Richie would’ve run out here and fucking  _ threw up  _ was that he’s  _ transphobic.  _ He’s done such a bang-up job hiding himself from the people he considers his friends that  _ Bill  _ thought that.

He starts shaking again, sinking down to his knees in the dewey grass. The cold damp seeps into his knees, but he barely even realizes it. He just keeps staring down and says, “I’m gay.”

“What?”

Richie can’t make himself say it again. He literally  _ can’t.  _ When he tries to speak, the words knot up in his throat. He inhales sharply, trying to breathe, and Bill’s arms come around him, holding him upright.

“Richie, hey,” Bill says. “You’re alright, Rich. What the fuck’s going on? What’d you say? Are you okay?”

Richie still can’t answer, but Bill asking  _ are you okay  _ pushes him over the edge into crying. He can’t stop his breath from coming short and fast, fingers grasping at his chest and throat as the air vanishes from his lungs. He turns his face into Bill’s chest and sobs,” Billy, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Bill says automatically. “What’re you sorry for? What happened?”

Richie swallows and manages to hold his breath long enough to say, “I’m so sorry, Bill, I’m gay, I’m so sorry—”

“Whoa, Richie,” Bill cuts him off. Richie dissolves again, pulling away from Bill’s hold, but his fingers just tighten in Richie’s arms and tug him back in. “Where the fuck— Richie, don’t apologize. Don’t  _ apologize,  _ hey, it’s okay, it’s  _ okay.” _

Richie doesn’t have anything to say to that. He doesn’t have anything to say, he just  _ cries,  _ thinking about that night when he was ten years old and he told his best friend a boy’s name was written on his wrist. All he remembers that night is seeing Eddie curled up on his side, hiding from him, telling him to go when Richie confessed his soulmate was a boy. It’s played over and over in his head for  _ years. _

“It was him,” Richie tells Bill. It feels important that  _ somebody  _ knows, even if it’s not Eddie.

“What was him?” Bill asks. Richie pushes away from Bill again, forcing his way up to his feet so he can pace. He feels like he’s full of electricity, suddenly, as he wipes tears off his face furiously and starts unzipping his jacket. “What the fuck’re you—”

“Bill, just—” Richie starts to say, but his zipper gets stuck. “God fucking—  _ damn it!  _ God  _ damn—”  _ He whirls, nearly punching the wall before remembering he’s a fucking  _ adult.  _ He’s not ten years old anymore, running away from the Kaspbrak house at eleven o’clock at night, in tears about things he’d never fully understand.

Bill’s hand tentatively slips onto Richie’s shoulder. When Richie doesn’t shrug him off this time, he slowly turns him until they’re facing each other. In the piercing streetlight high above them in their high school parking lot, twenty-five years after they graduated, Bill helps Richie out of his jacket.

Once he’s free, Richie pulls off the cuff around his wrist. It’s riding up a little bit; the flash he gets of the top of the name is exactly what he’d seen while he was puking his guts out, and seeing it again makes his stomach twist. Swallowing, he tugs at the leather bands holding the thing together until it all unravels and falls into Bill’s open palms waiting beneath.

“Look,” Richie murmurs, holding his wrist out into the middle space between them. He can’t get himself to look at Bill’s face when he sees it. Bill doesn’t say anything. In a few moments of silence, tears burn at Richie’s eyes again before rolling down his face. He sniffles, wiping at them with his other wrist. “Sorry. I’m so fucking stupid.”

“No,” Bill insists. Richie looks up on instinct, forgetting he was supposed to be looking away, but Bill’s looking him hard in the eyes. He doesn’t see the anger or disgust anymore, but instead more of the pitying and also just— concern. Sympathy. Maybe empathy.

“I’m sorry,” Richie says again.

“Don’t be sorry,” Bill says. “You’re not stupid, Rich.”

“I’m sorry I lied—”

_ “Don’t  _ be sorry,” Bill repeats. “Richie, I— I wish you would’ve told me, or— or at least felt that you  _ could  _ tell me, you know. But I know why you didn’t— Richie, it’s  _ okay.  _ It’s okay.”

Richie nods, tears still spilling down his cheeks. He huffs a wet laugh, tipping his head back and sniffling again. His wrist is still caught between Bill’s cold fingers.

“It’s okay,” Bill says again. Richie just keeps nodding as he pulls Bill in, burying his face into the juncture of his throat and his shoulder. Bill rubs his back while Richie just breathes, trying to calm himself down.

“I’ve never told anyone,” Richie says quietly near Bill’s ear, when he’s ready to tell him.

“Which part?”

“All of it.” Richie dries his face on Bill’s shirt collar, smiling at the playful whack and laugh it earns him. “I haven’t shown anyone my soulmark. And I haven’t— Well, obviously a couple of guys know I’m gay. But I haven’t really, like.  _ Told  _ anyone. Not someone important like you.”

Bill’s quiet again. His hand comes up, slowly, and rubs Richie’s back for another moment before threading up into his hair and scratching at his scalp. They haven’t hugged like this in years, since they were kids, practically. He  _ misses  _ being close to people. He  _ misses  _ it.

“I’m sorry I lied,” Richie says. “And that I kept everything from you, Billy, I didn’t want to and then I just didn’t… know how not to. I guess. I didn’t know what to say, I mean, how do I— How do I come out to someone I’ve known since I was three when I’m— I’m twenty, or thirty-five, or forty? How do I fucking explain that?”

“You don’t have to explain anything,” Bill tells him. “Hey, I’m serious. You don’t have to explain. It’s just you, okay? And I love you, Rich. You’re like my brother, okay, and that’s not changing. I love you, man. And I— I don’t know, I—” He hesitates, then says, “I mean, I’ve— Mike and I have— I don’t really. I don’t really know how to…”

Richie lifts his head to frown down at Bill. “Are you—”

“No,” Bill cuts him off. “No, I’m not— I’m not gay, I just— I am not… straight.”

The two of them look at each other for a long,  _ long  _ moment. At the end of it, though, Richie’s pounding heart evens out a little bit, and he pulls Bill in again, laughing breathlessly as he hugs him tight.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Richie says. “You fucking homo.”

“You can’t say that to me.”

“Yes, I can,” Richie insists. “I can  _ now,  _ anyways.”

After a second, Bill asks, “Are you afraid of Eddie finding out?”

“Finding out that I’m gay?” Richie asks. His mind’s still whirling around telling Bill and having Bill —  _ Bill —  _ reply with,  _ Yeah, me too. _

“Not so much that,” Bill replies. He motions to Richie’s wrist almost regretfully, like he wishes he could’ve reminded him of something better. Richie’s stomach drops out again.

“I don’t want to,” Richie says. He feels childish, despite being forty, but he doesn’t  _ want to.  _ “He’s got a life now, dude. I can’t just— tell him this thirty years after the fact, that’s not fucking fair.”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of fair,” Bill tells him. “I think it’s just how it is. Sometimes things are how they are.”

“And you’re a writer?” Richie asks. Bill elbows him.

“Not everything’s good or bad, Richie,” Bill says. “Some things just are.”

The two of them are both quiet for a moment, which is unusual for them, to say the least. After a hard minute, Bill’s hand comes up to gently wrap around Richie’s forearm, fingers gingerly looping around his wrist and nearly obscuring the name  _ Edward. _

“What do you want to say?” Bill asks.

Richie takes a breath. When he closes his eyes, he thinks about Eddie again. Everything’s just clicking into place; every inch of his repression and internalized homophobia and his fear unraveling itself inside him in the face of understanding and realization. Eddie’s revelation has turned Eddie himself into a revelation, and Richie can’t get on his knees fast enough.

“I’m in love with him, I think,” Richie says. “In a way I can’t really— I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I’ve been in love with him since I was seven, Billy.  _ Seven.  _ I couldn’t even fucking dress myself at seven.”

“You can’t dress yourself now,” Bill comments. Richie huffs a half-laugh.

“When… Right before Eddie left, I told him about my arm,” Richie says. Bill’s face goes a little pale. “Not— I didn’t tell him about the name. I just said I had a boy’s name on my arm, and he just… I don’t know, he shut down. I mean, in hindsight and knowing what I know now,  _ yeah,  _ that makes sense as a reaction, but, Bill, I was ten years old and I’d just told my best friend I thought I was gay and— Just for them to leave. I didn’t know… I didn’t know, how was I supposed to know?”

“You weren’t,” Bill assures him. Richie pushes away from him, shoving his hands through his hair.

“I’ve been in love with him for so  _ long,”  _ Richie says, words just spilling out of him now. “When he left he fucking— He took part of me when he left, and I have been searching my whole fucking  _ life  _ for that fucking piece and it was all in vain because it’s been him the  _ entire  _ time. It’s never mattered because it’s  _ always  _ been him, Bill, he’s my  _ soulmate,  _ he’s my soulmate—”

Bill catches him in another hug, yanking Richie in by the arms and just wrapping himself around him until Richie’s shouting shivers down to shaking and tears. Richie just buries his face in Bill’s shoulder again and relaxes, letting his spine slump, his limbs hanging limp. He sighs, exhausted.

“I think you two should talk,” Bill says somewhere near Richie’s ear. He nods absently, lifting his head to wipe at his face with his sleeves while Bill pulls his phone out. Richie can see him navigating Facebook to Eddie’s Facebook page before he opens up a short chat between the two of them and taps the  _ call  _ button in the messenger app. “Do you want video?”

“Fuck,  _ no,”  _ Richie answers, taking the phone from Bill’s hand. “I can barely keep it together like this, if we do it face-to-face I’ll completely lose my shit.”

“Fair,” Bill allows, just as Eddie picks up.

“Bill, hey,” Eddie says, not wasting a breath. “What the fuck was that asshole’s deal? Did you catch him? You would think—”

Richie’s stomach turns, but he cuts him off to say, “Hey, sorry, Eddie Spaghetti, it’s me.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then,

“That’s not my fucking name,” Eddie snaps.  _ “Fuck,  _ Richie. Where the fuck are you? You didn’t have to be an ass about this, you know. If I knew you were going to freak out like this I would’ve messaged you beforehand, or just not fucking bothered to come—”

“No, that’s not—” Richie starts to say.

“Are you outside?” Eddie says over him. Richie feels his face burning again, and he looks to Bill, panicked, just to see he’s edged away to give him space. “You know what, motherfucker, fine— You went out the south door, I’ll just fucking— come and talk to you myself, give you a fucking piece of my mind—”

Richie’s nose prickles, and he almost bursts into tears again. Part of it is devastated that he’s the reason Eddie’s this upset, but most of it is just— Holy  _ shit,  _ he’s missed Eddie so much. He’s missed his fucking spitfire attitude and his mile-a-minute talking and his—  _ everything,  _ he’s  _ missed  _ Eddie. He’s been missing Eddie for thirty fucking years, needing him all along and having no fucking idea what it was he was missing so badly.

In the end, he just hangs up, because Eddie’s done ranting and there’s not much he can say until they can talk, anyways. He passes Bill’s phone off to him.

“He’s coming out to yell at me,” Richie tells him.

“I heard,” Bill says. The south door bangs open, and his shoulders visibly tense. “Good luck. Godspeed.”

“The fuck does that mean?” Richie asks, but Bill’s already jogging away. He says something softly to Eddie as he catches the door, but it doesn’t seem to slow Eddie down much. He’s still storming over with more rage than Richie’s seen in a human person before. Bill vanishes through the south door back into the gym, the coward, and abandons them both outside alone together.

“What the fuck, man?” Eddie shouts at him, once he’s halfway across the lot to where Richie’s losing his mind. Richie, deliriously, starts to fucking  _ laugh.  _ Eddie’s face goes nearly purple, eyebrows drawing together and forehead crinkling as he gets ready to shout at him again.

“No, no, stop, I just—” Richie manages to get out, but the knot in his throat and nervous laughter bubbling up are making it hard to actually just—  _ talk  _ to him. He’s spent his whole life keeping this secret, and now he just has to— tell the  _ one person  _ he  _ never  _ wanted to tell.  _ Ever.  _ And  _ then  _ he has to get rejected by him. Great.

“What is it?” Eddie demands. “Because Bill said you had a good reason, and I just gotta say, it better be damn fucking good, because I don’t think there’s  _ any _ good reason for—”

His words drop off not because Richie interrupts him, but because he lifts his wrist on a protective instinct, but the movement lets Eddie see the word written across it. Richie lets him. He doesn’t have anything else to say or do; this is all he really has left. And so, heart pounding and with a wrenched-out laugh, tears following up behind it, he says, “It’s not really a good reason. I’m sorry.”

Eddie’s speechless, which is a fucking first, as far as Richie knows him. He’d torn out of the building like a bat out of hell, but he’s deflated now, just staring at Richie’s wrist incredulously like his skin’s about to sprout teeth and bite him.

Hesitantly, Eddie steps forward. His fingers tentatively touch Richie’s hand, the pad of his thumb pushing into the center of Richie’s palm as he takes his arm down to examine closer. He’s silent, but everywhere their skin slides together feels electric. Richie can’t help the goosebumps that rise all over his flesh.

“I didn’t think you had my name,” Eddie confesses. His voice is so quiet Richie almost misses it; he’d been half-expecting to be shouted at again, and the almost-whisper is completely out of left field.

“Wh—”

“The universe isn’t fucking fair,” Eddie says. Richie’s heart is pounding as he tries to make sense of what Eddie’s saying to him. “I didn’t think you had my name.”

“What?” Richie manages to ask. Eddie’s thumb slips down to smooth across his own name on Richie’s wrist. It’s the softest, most tender touch Richie thinks he’s ever felt in his life. The skin under Eddie’s hand is translucently pale from years and years hidden beneath his cuff, but he’s— maybe finally ready to get out in the sun for once. Completely.

“I didn’t think you had my name,” Eddie repeats. “Because the universe dishes shit out unevenly and I know lots of people whose soulmarks say names that aren’t someone they’re with. Sometimes shit ends up messed up so I figured this was just messed up, too. Or correct, I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Richie tells him, because he can’t make heads or tails of this but it feels important and his heart is  _ racing.  _ He thinks he knows what Eddie might be telling him, but it’s so insane he’s not sure he can believe it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Eddie asks, instead of explaining what he means. Richie’s hand is shaking where Eddie’s holding it up.

“I didn’t know,” Richie says. “I swear, I didn’t. I didn’t know what your name was. I’ve— I mean, I’ve looked you up a couple times, but— Only with your deadname. I didn’t know, Eds, I swear. I  _ swear,  _ when you left, I thought it was me. It’s— Was it me? Because— Was it my name, Eds?”

Eddie doesn’t look up at him. Instead, he keeps tracing the letters on Richie’s wrist with the edge of his thumbnail. A light scratch lifts up along the edge of the  _ w. _

“Yeah,” Eddie confesses downwards. “But I couldn’t tell you that. I didn’t get it then. And then you told me your arm had a boy’s name—”

“—And you thought it couldn’t be you,” Richie finishes for him. Eddie nods, finally lifting his head to meet Richie’s eyes, dark eyes flashing bright in the catch of reflected streetlights. “But it is.”

Eddie’s eyes flick down again at that, attention skimming along the outline of his name. He smiles with just a twitch at the corner of his mouth before he says, “Fuck, I didn’t even know. I would’ve picked the name on purpose when I was ten just to be your soulmate, you know.”

Richie feels like his knees are going to go out from under him. He’d never intended to confess this to anyone,  _ anyone,  _ and now Eddie’s standing in front of him, five minutes off the angriest Richie’s ever seen him, saying that he would’ve chosen his own name on purpose just to have Richie love him cosmically. It makes him fucking  _ dizzy. _

“I never wanted to say anything,” Eddie continues. Richie has to sit down, pulling away from Eddie’s hold when his legs won’t support him anymore. He just sits in the patch of grass between parking spots, leaning against the slender tree there. Eddie follows, folding his legs up as he sits crossed-up right beside him.

“About my name?” Richie finally asks, dizzy. Eddie nods.

“I figured you would’ve told me if my name was on your wrist,” Eddie says. “I never thought of this. I never thought it’d be— I just didn’t. I thought it’d be my deadname. I figured it was the name you were born with.”

“It’s  _ your  _ name, Eddie,” Richie says. He’s wanted to tell whoever Edward was that he loves him for  _ years,  _ just for Edward to be someone he’d told that to before.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie tells him. “My mom m—”

“Don’t,” Richie cuts him off. “I’m sorry, too, and I—”

“Don’t,” Eddie echoes, interrupting him. He’s got that little tugged-up smile again when Richie looks up at him, so Richie smiles, too. He looks back down to Richie’s wrist and says, “I just figured you would’ve told me, if it was my name. And then you said it was a boy’s name and I— I don’t know. I had no reason to guess. And then we moved, and I… I don’t know. Just hoped it’d be a different Richard. It’s not an uncommon name.”

“Tragically,” Richie says, choked.

“But there wasn’t anyone,” Eddie continues, like Richie hadn’t even spoken. “Nobody I met— Nobody’s you. No Richards or Richies I ever met were my soulmate.”

“Good,” Richie says.

“Good,” Eddie agrees. Richie’s still terrified, hands shaking as the middle distance between them grows into an insurmountable no man’s land. Eddie’s the one who takes pity first. He reaches out and pulls Richie closer, scooting them together until they’re kneeling on the damp grass just inches apart from one another. Eddie settles back on his heels, so Richie does the same, scratching at the back of his head.

“I—” Richie starts to say, then stops. He feels choked up again.

Eddie takes over for him, thank fucking God. “I would’ve told you if I knew, I swear. But my mom wouldn’t let me call you guys, and after a while it was just… I don’t know, it’d been so long, I couldn’t even imagine. Reaching out to you after ten years, fifteen, twenty, I just— I don’t know. I figured you wouldn’t want to hear it, or I wouldn’t. Why bother opening up an old wound like that, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Richie agrees. “Why bother?”

“Well,” Eddie says, “I mean, I know why  _ now.  _ I know  _ now  _ why I should’ve bothered.”

“You couldn’t’ve—”

“I just got divorced,” Eddie confesses in a rush. Richie blinks, heart pounding. “Like, a little while ago. I divorced Myra— Woman, a woman, because I realized I’m gay, and I wanted to just— just start over because I’ve been in this fucking— this  _ rut,  _ you know? But— Well, actually, I don’t think it counts as being stuck in a rut if it’s your  _ entire  _ fucking life, so— Alright, more what I meant is, I’m not living the life I wanted to live, Rich, I’ve been living by everyone  _ else’s  _ standards for me, by some unwritten rules I thought I should follow.”

Richie can barely take it all in, Eddie’s talking so fast and so animatedly, but it’s the most important thing he’s ever had to listen to, so he processes it all.

“And I don’t  _ need  _ to follow those rules, Richie,” Eddie continues. “They’re made up. Other people are trying to dictate how I live or what should make me happy and— None of it does. I need to listen to my gut instincts.”

Richie’s heart is pounding even faster when he asks, “And what’re they telling you?”

“They’re telling me…” Eddie starts to say, then trails off. His thumb runs over the black ink of the soulmark inside Richie’s arm; after a beat, he lifts his hand to let his fingertips trace up the soft inner skin to Richie’s elbow, taking hold of him by the crook of it. “My instincts are telling me you’re my soulmate, Richie.”

“Shit,” Richie chokes out. One of Eddie’s eyebrows twitches up, and Richie laughs, strangled. “I just— I can’t fucking believe it.  _ Fuck.  _ This shit’s just— Eds, this is too good to be true, you gotta get where I’m coming from here. I feel like this is a fucking dream.”

“It’s not a dream,” Eddie tells him. His face is going back to a softer, more embarrassed pink as he says, “If it was a dream, you wouldn’t have freaked out two seconds after seeing me. You just would’ve told me right there.”

“Point taken,” Richie allows. “And for the record, my instincts are telling me you’re my soulmate, too, Eds.”

“That’s not my name.”

“I got evidence says it is,” Richie reminds him, pointing down to his own wrist with his chin. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Does it say  _ Eds?  _ No,” Eddie points out. “Does it say  _ Eddie Spaghetti?  _ No, it fucking does not—”

“It also doesn’t say  _ Eddie,”  _ Richie says. “You prefer I call you  _ Edward?  _ You want to be a vampire—”

“This was before all of that, that’s not why,” Eddie tells him firmly. He yanks Richie back in by the upper arms and says, “Please tell me you’re gay, too.”

“Fucking— Obviously, Eds,” Richie answers. “That should’ve been the first thing I—”

He doesn’t finish what he’s saying, because Eddie’s looking up at him with those big eyes like he’s the dumbest, greatest person he’s ever seen before he surges up to kiss him. Richie’s shocked, but not so shocked he can’t enjoy a kiss with fucking  _ Eddie Kaspbrak. _

Richie’s hands shoot up to cup Eddie’s face in his hands, his fingertips creeping up into his short hair as he tips their heads to deepen the kiss. Eddie’s lips curve up into a smile as Richie licks into his mouth once before they separate.

“I’ve got…” Richie starts to say, then stops, licking his lips. Eddie’s eyes drop down to trace the movement of his mouth before he continues with, “I’ve got a  _ lot  _ of years of internalized homophobia to work on for you, big guy. Buckle up.”

Eddie frowns at him, eyes finally flickering back up to meet Richie’s again. The frown slips away into a smile when he sees that Richie’s grinning. “I’m always buckled up.”

“Not surprised,” Richie replies. “I seriously can’t believe you’re my fucking soulmate. My name’s always been Richard, y’know. You could’ve said.”

“Well, if you hadn’t run off like a fucking pussy, I was going to eventually tell you that we needed to have a conversation,” Eddie says. Richie scoffs.

“That just would’ve freaked me out more,” Richie tells him.  _ “‘We need to talk,’  _ but I haven’t seen you in decades.  _ Horrifying,  _ Eds.”

_ “You  _ are the one who had to be all  _ dramatic—”  _ Eddie starts to argue, but Richie swoops in for another kiss to cut him off. It works for only a second before Eddie withdraws, nose wrinkling. “Nope,  _ hell  _ no, you  _ just  _ threw up, dude. That kiss was a fucking one-time deal, we are getting you a toothbrush  _ right  _ the fuck now.”

“Okay,” Richie agrees. Eddie looks up at him, confused, but Richie just shrugs and says, “Let’s go get me a toothbrush.”

There’s a beat where neither of them says anything before Eddie pulls out his phone. Richie watches over his shoulder as Eddie types out a message to Bill in Facebook messenger. All it says is,  _ Richie and I are going for a snack run. Anyone need anything? _

Richie pulls the keys of his rental car out of his pocket as Eddie messages with Bill. The two of them cross the lot together in silence, the only sounds Eddie tapping away on his phone. By the time they’re actually buckled up, Richie feels like the silence is about to shatter them both.

To counter it, he turns on the radio. Heart’s “Alone” pumps into the car, and Richie feels like the universe is playing a cosmic joke on him.

Instead of commenting, Richie just starts singing along. He drums his hands on the steering wheel, nudges Eddie along, the whole nine yards, and it finally draws Eddie back out to him with a laugh. He locks his phone and puts it in his pocket, leaning his head back against his headrest. Hesitantly, his hand comes out to wrap up with Richie’s on the steering wheel. Richie lets it come down to rest with Eddie’s on the center console between them, their fingers all tangled together.

“Remember when this song came out?” Richie asks, cutting himself off mid-chorus.

“It made me think about you,” Eddie says. Richie feels like he’s  _ definitely  _ fucking dreaming, and tells Eddie as much. “Always the comedian.”

“I’m serious,” Richie says. “This is too good to be true, Eddie. I’m completely serious.”

Eddie plays with Richie’s fingers for a moment before leaning forward to turn the volume down on Richie’s blaring radio. Into the new humming quiet, over the low thrum of the bass and the rumble of the engine, Eddie says, “Why can’t we be allowed to just have this?”

Richie doesn’t have a good answer for that, so he doesn’t make one up. Instead, he squeezes Eddie’s hand. He’s rewarded when Eddie squeezes his back.

There’s a Cumberland Farms only just down the road from the old high school, just like there was when Richie was still going there. He pulls into the parking lot there and tells Eddie he’ll be right back, just for Eddie to unbuckle his seatbelt and follow him inside anyways.

Under the harsh fluorescents of the convenience store, Eddie tells him, “Bill and Mike actually asked for snacks. I think they’re just being dicks.”

“Tell them that’s my job,” Richie says. “Well, get their shit. I’ll make myself presentable for you, my charming suitor.”

“Shut up,” Eddie says, but the bright lights put him on showcase, illuminating the faintest blush across his cheeks. Richie pinches the edge of one like he used to when they were kids, but Eddie doesn’t swat him away this time.

“You’re so fucking cute,” Richie tells him. Eddie  _ does  _ scowl at that, but it melts away when Richie continues, “I think I really love you, man. I think I always have.”

“Thanks, bro,” Eddie chokes out in response. The joke makes Richie smile before he leans in to peck a kiss down on Eddie’s cheek, where his skin’s still rubbed red by Richie pinching him. “Go brush your fucking teeth so I can kiss you again.”

“Aye-aye, Captain Kaspbrak,” Richie says. Eddie pushes him away to go do as he’s told. So, he does, perusing the tiny aisle labeled  _ health  _ until he finds toothpaste and a travel toothbrush that doesn’t look like it’ll immediately snap in his hand. Eddie’s still rooting around in the candy aisle when he emerges, so he pays for his goods and begs the bathroom key off the bored attendant behind the register.

When Richie locks himself into the small bathroom at the back of the store, he’s surprised to see he hasn’t changed tremendously. On the outside, in his reflection, he looks… pretty much the same. Leaning over the sink to look at himself in the mirror over the basin, he doesn’t find anything really all that different. As he brushes his teeth, he keeps looking himself over, but, no. Same guy he was when he brushed his teeth that morning.

He finally realizes what’s different after he spits and rinses his mouth. He’s happy.

After splashing cold water on his face, Richie pockets his new tiny toothbrush and toothpaste. Looking himself in the eye in the mirror, he inhales slowly, then exhales steadily.

“You’re awake,” Richie tells himself. He pinches the back of his hand, really getting his nails in, and doesn’t wake up, so he looks back up to himself. “Alright. You got this.”

“Are you fucking talking to yourself in there?” Eddie demands from the other side of the door. Richie jumps, heart skyrocketing into his throat. “Get out here, you dumbass. Are you done brushing your teeth?”

Richie unlocks the bathroom door with shaking hands and says, “Yeah, I’m all done.”

“Okay, good,” Eddie says. His eyes flick over the bathroom behind Richie before he asks, “You were talking to yourself, weren’t you?”

“Shut up,” Richie defends himself. Eddie laughs. “Shut  _ up,  _ dude, I feel like I’m tripping ass. Maybe I died—”

_ “Stop,”  _ Eddie says. He takes Richie by the hand and pulls him back through the store and out to the car, but he doesn’t get in. Instead, he just leans against the passenger’s side door, so Richie follows his example and leans right next to him.

After some quiet, Eddie pulls a bag of M&Ms out of his pocket and offers them to Richie. Surprised, Richie takes them. “These are my favorites.”

“I remembered,” Eddie tells him. “Or, I remembered what your favorites were when you were ten, and then relied on the fact that you don’t seem to have changed all that much.”

“Ouch—”

“That’s not what I mean,” Eddie says. “It’s good you haven’t changed. I liked the person you were. I like the person you  _ are.” _

“You’d be the first,” Richie says.

“That’s not true,” Eddie argues. He takes the palmful of M&Ms Richie shakes out for him and eats them one by one as he says, “I don’t even know you in your personal life right now and I know that’s not true, man. You’re  _ Richie.” _

“Yeah, that means nothing,” Richie replies.

“I always thought you were untouchable,” Eddie says. Richie’s heart races.

“I’m very touchable,” he reminds Eddie, half-joking. “In fact, I encourage you to touch me right now.”

Inexplicably, Eddie takes him up on the offer. Without another word, he pulls the M&Ms bag out of Richie’s hand, pocketing it again. His empty hands slide to Richie’s hips, filling themselves by gripping him tight there and pulling him in. Richie imagines Eddie can feel his heart racing everywhere they’re connected.

“Like that?” Eddie asks. Richie nods jerkily.

“Something like that,” Richie replies. One of Eddie’s hands, the right one, creeps up Richie’s side, trailing around to his chest and slipping up to his shoulder. When Richie turns his head, he catches sight of his own name on the inside of Eddie’s wrist. In the same black ink that makes up the  _ Edward  _ on his own arm, Eddie’s got  _ Richard  _ on his. He shivers.

“You okay?” Eddie asks. Richie nods, leaning in to push his face into Eddie’s hand. He reaches up to catch his arm, kissing along the inside of Eddie’s elbow down to his wrist, then up to his palm. Eddie shivers, too, when Richie slips past his hand to pull Eddie into a proper kiss.

Richie can’t help but smile, tasting mint and chocolate in both their mouths when Eddie’s hand threads into his hair to deepen the kiss. He shifts them, tilting their heads and letting his eyes slip closed. For a second, Richie just watches him; then, he closes his own eyes and just loses himself in Eddie.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) come chat with me on Twitter at [@nicole__mello](https://twitter.com/nicole__mello) (new @!) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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